The Lateness of the Hour

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“The Lateness of the Hour”
The Twilight Zone episode

Scene from "The Lateness of the Hour"
Episode no. Season 2
Episode 44
Written by Rod Serling
Directed by Jack Smight
Guest stars Inger Stevens : Jana
John Hoyt : Dr. Loren
Irene Tedrow : Mrs. Loren
Tom Palmer : Robert (the butler)
Mary Gregory : Nelda (the maid)
Valley Keene : Suzanne (the maid)
Doris Karnes : Gretchen (a maid)
Jason Johnson : Jensen (the handyman)
Featured music none credited
Production no. 173-3652
Original airdate December 2, 1960
Episode chronology
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"Nick of Time" "The Trouble With Templeton "
List of Twilight Zone episodes

"The Lateness of the Hour" is the December 2, 1960 episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

Contents

[edit] Opening narration

At the foot of the staircase in the Loren mansion—as Dr. Loren and the servants walk out of camera range, Rod Serling moves into view behind them:

“ The residence of Dr. William Loren, which is in reality a menagerie for machines. We're about to discover that sometimes the product of man's talent and genius can walk amongst us untouched by the normal ravages of time. These are Dr. Loren's robots, built to functional as well as artistic perfection. But in a moment Dr. William Loren, wife and daughter will discover that perfection is relative, that even robots have to be paid for, and very shortly will be shown exactly what is the bill. ”

[edit] Synopsis

Jana, the sensitive daughter of a creative genius, Dr. Loren, is distraught over her parents' reliance on her father’s five seemingly perfect robot servants. She implores her father to dismantle the robots before he and her mother become completely dependent on them. After he complies, she reveals to her parents that she plans to start a new life by leaving the stifling confines of the house, getting married and having children. Seeing their dismayed expressions, she comes to the shocking realization that she, too, is a robot, albeit much more emotionally sophisticated than the ones that were dismantled. The discovery causes Jana such anguish that her "father" is forced to erase the memory of her former "identity" and ultimately use her as a replacement for Nelda, the maid skilled at giving Mrs. Loren her most pleasurable activity, a shoulder massage.

[edit] Closing narration

“ Let this be the postscript—Should you be worn out by the rigors of competing in a very competitive world, if you're distraught from having to share your existence with the noises and neuroses of the twentieth century, if you crave serenity but want it full time and with no strings attached, get yourself a workroom in the basement, and then drop a note to Dr. and Mrs. William Loren. They're a childless couple who made comfort a life's work, and maybe there are a few do-it-yourself pamphlets still available... in the Twilight Zone. ”

[edit] End credits

  • THE LATENESS OF THE HOUR
  • Directed by Jack Smight [second of four TZ episodes—see "Episode notes"]
  • Written by Rod Serling [thirty-third of ninety-two TZ episodes]
  • Produced by Buck Houghton [forty-third of one-hundred-one TZ episodes]
  • The Twilight Zone Created by Rod Serling
  • Starring Inger Stevens as Jana [second of two TZ appearances—see "Episode notes"]
  • John Hoyt as Dr. Loren [first of two TZ appearances—see "Episode notes"]
Irene Tedrow as Mrs. Loren [second of two TZ appearances—see "Episode notes"]
  • with Tom Palmer as Robert (the butler)
Mary Gregory as Nelda (the maid utilized for massaging Mrs. Loren's shoulders) [second of three TZ appearances—see "Episode notes"]
  • Valley Keene as Suzanne (the maid who tumbles down the stairs and reacts with a smile)
Doris Karnes as Gretchen (the maid who says to Jana, "I consider that unforgivable behavior") [second of two TZ appearances—see "Episode notes"]
Jason Johnson as Jensen (the handyman) [second of two TZ appearances—see "Episode notes"]

[edit] Episode notes

By November 1960, The Twilight Zone's second season had already broadcast five episodes and finished filming sixteen. However, at a cost of about $65,000 per episode, the show was exceeding its budget. As a result, six consecutive episodes were videotaped and then transferred to 16-millimeter film for TV transmission. Total savings on editing and cinematography amounted to around $30,000 for all six entries, not enough to justify the loss of depth of visual perspective, which made the shows look like stagebound live TV dramas. The experiment was therefore deemed a failure and never attempted again.

Even though the six shows were taped in a row, through November and into mid-December, their broadcast dates were out of order and varied widely, with this, the first one, shown on December 2, 1960 as episode 8. The second one, "Static", was shown on March 10, 1961 as episode 20; the third, "The Whole Truth", appeared on January 20, 1961 as episode 14; the fourth was TZ's sole Christmas entry, "The Night of the Meek", shown as the 11th episode on December 23, 1960; the fifth, "Twenty Two", was seen on February 10, 1961 as episode 17 and the last one, "Long Distance Call", was transmitted on March 3, 1961 as episode 22.

  • Jack Smight (1925-2003), a director of numerous TV episodes, made-for-TV movies and theatrical films, helmed four TZ episodes, including three of the six videotaped ones, the other two being "The Night of the Meek" and "Twenty Two". His first TZ assignment was "The Lonely" which, shown as the seventh episode of the first season, was the first regularly-filmed installment after the pilot episode.
  • This was the second of two TZ starring roles for TV's Swedish Farmer's Daughter, Inger Stevens (1934–1970) who, during her final decade, kept a busy schedule of television guest appearances as well as feature film roles. Her earlier performance was in one of the first season's most unsettling episodes, "The Hitch-Hiker", in which she played another tormented character, a lone driver who meets her inexorable fate.
  • Familiar character actor John Hoyt (1905–1991) frequently portrayed intellectuals, including a number of mad scientists. His other TZ appearance, twenty episodes later, was as one of the most memorable personalities in the history of the show—the dismayed Martian who is one-upped by the diner-counterman-turned-Venusian in the rival-Earth-invasions surprise ending of the season's penultimate episode, "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?".
  • Busy character actress Irene Tedrow (1907–1995) played a busybody neighbor on CBS' Dennis the Menace during its entire 1959–63 run, while on TZ, her first appearance was in another one of the first season's top episodes, "Walking Distance", where she was the young Gig Young's mother.
  • Doris Karnes appears to have had no acting career other than small roles in two TZ installments and three episodes of other TV series, all between 1959 and 1962. Here, she's the third maid, Gretchen, and in first season's "What You Need", appears in the final minute as a woman who, along with her husband, is awakened by the commotion surrounding the car accident death of Steve Cochran.

[edit] External links

[edit] Twilight Zone links

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